Business Insider promoted the idea that LuLaRoe is making women rich. While there ARE a handful of women who are making a ton of money from the company, only an incredibly tiny fraction of participants can make this type of money. Why? Simple math. If you’re making a 3% to 5% commission on your downline (as you’ll see below), it takes $700,000 of wholesale purchases by your downline to earn $35,000 in a month. (I realize that various bonuses change the math, but I’m using these numbers to simplify things.)

Imagine how many people need to be in the downline and how much they each need to buy to generate this volume. Simple math tells you that everyone below the woman earning $35,000 can’t build a pyramid of this size. There simply aren’t enough people on the planet, and there are only so many customers available for each distributor.

Let’s talk about some of the specifics downfalls to this fake business.

LuLaRoe Inventory

Initial inventory purchases are where multi-level marketing companies make the bulk of their money. The first purchase is almost always the most a recruit will buy over the span of her “career” with the MLM. So the bigger the recruiter can get her to spend on that first purchase, the better for the company and the recruiter.

In LuLaRoe, you MUST buy an inventory package. You can’t take orders from customers and then just go to the company and get what you need. You have to get a package, and you must sell from that. And guess what? You don’t get to choose your inventory. You can make some selections regarding the types of products, but you don’t get to choose the colors or patterns. This means that you inevitably will end up with products you can’t sell because they’re the wrong style, size, or pattern.

The LuLaRoe inventory packages look like this, according to my research:

It is “recommended” that you have about 700 to 800 pieces of inventory on hand at any give time. That’s about $15,000 to $20,000 wholesale cost in inventory. When re-ordering, you must order 33 pieces at a time. That’s about $500-$800 that you must spend each time you order. You can dictate the size and style of the pieces you order, but you can’t specify the print. You get what you get.

The bottom line is that it’s REALLY expensive to get started with LuLaRoe. And then there’s the LuLaRoe inventory problem. Every time you order inventory, you must plan to have items left that you can’t sell. Your unsellable items build up and represent money you will never recover. I suspect many women underestimate the amount of inventory that will go unsold and how much of your “profits” this will wipe out.

Getting Paid on Your Downline

So maybe the money is in recruiting people into LuLaRoe? Well, yes. All MLM companies are endless chain recruiting schemes. The core of the business is continuously recruiting new people. MLM has an extremely high dropout rate because almost no one makes money (and therefore they drop out when they realize that). In order to sustain the company, the remaining participants must keep recruiting in new blood. As you can see from this income disclosure statement, over 78% of consultants receive no commissions/ bonuses from their downline.

As with all MLM, the LuLaRoe scheme is pay to play. You can get paid commissions on your downline, but only if you purchase products too. As you see below, you are “eligible” to earn 5% on your downline’s wholesale purchase (so on a $5,000 initial order, that’s $250), but only if you purchase at least 175 clothing pieces in the month the bonus is calculated. If the average wholesale price of a piece of clothing is $20, that means you have to spend about $3,500 in a month in order to get your $250.

As you can see from this LuLaRoe income disclosure statement, as a LuLaRoe consultant you can expect to make about $85 (on average) per year in commissions. That’s for the whole year! And in order to receive the amount you qualify for in a given month, you have to buy 175 pieces of clothing in that month. So again, you’ve got to spend about $3,500 in a month on clothing to be eligible to receive that month’s portion of your $85 annual commissions.

Once you have personally recruited at least 3 people and have ten people total below you, you’re a “trainer” and you can get paid additional commissions. You get the regular 5% on people you have personally recruited, and then can get an additional 3% for people your recruits have recruited. BUT… you can only get these commissions if the downline has purchased 1,750 pieces in the month (about $35,000 total wholesale cost if the average piece is $20) and you have personally purchased 250 pieces (about $5,000 total wholesale cost if the average piece is $20, but the total could be reduced a bit if certain purchases have been made by the downline). Basically, you *could* get commissions of about $1,000 to $1,500 on your downline, but only if the group has spent huge (about $35,000 spent by the group and $5,000 spent by you).

MLM advocates will tell you that you can build a business by helping others to get started. Because it is so difficult to build a profitable and sustainable retail base in MLM, it would seem that you MUST recruit in order develop a strong income. Yet these numbers show how (nearly) impossible it is to build a real income from recruiting into LuLaRoe, since the purchases the downline must make are so astronomical.

Do You Own a Business?

In multi-level marketing, you own nothing. You are subject to a contract with the company that creates a whole bunch of rules for you, but gives the company the ability to essentially fire you at any time. You don’t own your customers. You don’t own the right to get clothing from LuLaRoe. All you have is the temporary ability to sell the products, but that could go away at any time.

Here is a real world example of how things work in LuLaRoe. Kristi Trimmer is an established travel blogger with a pretty healthy following. She’s got a much bigger audience than the average person. (So what this means is that she has a lot more people to market LuLaRoe to than the average woman does.) Kristi signed on with LuLaRoe in October and spent $7,000 on inventory for her “business.” She recently recapped her first month with LuLaRoe on her blog.

Kristi reported selling 154 pieces of clothing for $4,716… which became $3,847 after discounts and incentives. Her profit on those sales was $938, as she showed below.

Sounds pretty good for a first month, you say? Remember this… Kristi put $7,000 into inventory and about $500 into other costs. That’s a lot of money invested for less than $1,000 in profits for a month. And Kristi has stated that it would be better to have much more inventory, so she will likely be putting all that money back into purchasing more clothing.

But the bigger problem is the nature of MLM itself. Kristi made these sales because she has a large following. Most people don’t have such an online presence, and so they won’t be able to replicate this. And even with a large following, Kristi only made $938. MLM participants find that they make a number of sales in the beginning, and then it trails off. Simply put, your friends and family make pity purchases to support you in the beginning. Most people will purchase once or twice and that’s it. It is very difficult (and for most people, impossible) to continue this level of activity or increase it.

Further, wildly-patterned leggings are a fad that will fade quickly. Even if they remain popular, you can only have so many leggings. Therefore, a customer is only going to buy a certain amount from you. And it’s not like a retail store where you have constant foot traffic to generate new customers. It is much more difficult to cultivate new customers in MLM.

Even if Kristi’s activity is sustainable, $1,000 net income per month isn’t going to support her. Especially not after she pays income taxes and self employment taxes. Maybe she could double her activity? Net income of $2,000 per month, less income taxes and self employment taxes won’t support her either.

Possibly a better analysis than the net profit shown above would be the cash flow. How much did Kristi spend, and is her cash positive or negative? Here’s how I estimate her cash outlay:

Of course, Kristi didn’t update her blog to disclose her results from November or December. I suspect she didn’t do any better. While she may have sold more, she said she was planning on buying more inventory, so any cash she brought in would surely be spent (and more!) on additional products. She will probably find herself in a cycle of spending more than she’s making month after month, as is typically the case in multi-level marketing companies.

The Bottom Line on LuLaRoe

LuLaRoe is no different than any other MLM. It’s a grand scheme made to look like a real business. They use the concept of retailing to make it appear to be a legitimate business. But in reality, you’re going to spend thousands of dollars on inventory, profit very little from actual sales, and almost certainly lose money on building a downline (because you have to purchase so much in order to receive a relatively tiny commission check). And this is why I call multi-level marketing a scam.

213 Comments

I can’t believe the hassle you go through just to see what the local rep has on hand! I won $100 towards the LLR. Their website is just a basic shell with a guy spouting about how the leggings have improved – alerting me to the fact, thar their product has a huge quality control problem. Put aside the MLM piece and look at a business model where the sales people do not have a website to use. Everyone has slightly different overpriced leggings, tops and dresses to sell. The print of the fabric is pretty obnoxious and leggings will only be here for another 15 minutes or so. Pit these poor misguided reps against mega retailer websites which showcase thousands of prints, designs and fabric plus shipping is often free and quick. The days of home selling, parties and targeting women is quickly drawing to a close. I believe the business model for LLR spells disaster. Not looking for this company to be here long.

Oh I know, it is awful. I might have actually bought a couple of things if I could have only seen what they have on offer. Nope – it’s a big giant mystery. The consultants won’t even let you see what they have for sale! What kind of an idiot retailer only lets you see their wares for 2 hours on a Wednesday afternoon? Why can’t I buy at my leisure, any time, day or night?

BTW, LLR is a huge mess right now. It is unreal just how shocked consultants are that an MLM turned out to be a scam. I mean, they really never saw this one coming.

Great article, Tracy! As I was reading, it occurred to me that the goal of having a “full store” or $15K – $20K in clothing ends up disguising the fact that the profits are tiny. Because creating a full store is something that you can succeed at! Also, the idea that you are ramping up and will enjoy high profits later is a key manipulation, when the truth is that you will continue to enjoy the same hard work and tiny profits that you have now.

Great article. Such a waste of time and money it is. I am about to get out and open an actual store with actual clothing that I get to pick. Things people will love and that is worth the money. They are not good people like they claim they don’t care what happens after they take your money. Such a joke!!!

Go to any retail store that sells clothes take a look at the glut of Inventory, the stuff they are trying to clear out, and ask your self do I want to be in the competitive clothes business where my inventory is of a lower quality. Cotton prices are high so that is why items are thin material. Also there is the fast fashion aspect of this company, they are in the money to make goods not expected to last very long. Consignment stores are doing well in this market as women look for quality goods not cheap leggings with childish prints. I think this company uses scrap cloth to make items, that is one reason the inventory is vague. It is a get rich quick scheme and guess what the owners are rich off of scrap cloth. Amusing if not sad.

Excellent point, Morningstar. I had the same thought about all the mismatches in the patterns. I have this vision of 3rd world sewing mills being told to make as many items as possible from the provided low-quality cloth.

I’ve always thought that the LLR marketing scheme is partly to disguise that they are buying small lots of leftover prints and things that didn’t sell … it’s not that they don’t want to sell more of a print, it’s that they can’t.

I firmly believe that the “limited number of prints” is because LLR buys fabric remnants—it has nothing to do with creating “unicorns”. Fabric remnants are dirt cheap. Apparently, LLR pays $1.50 for each pair of leggings, and then sells them to consultants for something like $12/pair. Then consultants turn around & mark them up to $25+ & try to sell them. There are many reports of leggings with holes, falling apart after the first wash & pulling apart at the seams. Consultants are telling customers to hand wash & line dry the leggings—I do not have ANY leggings that I have to hand wash & line dry!! For $25/pair, they should have much more substance & should be able to withstand machine washing & the dryer.

I’m a GOOBing consultant, and as someone who owned about 20 pairs of leggings before I signed on, wore them constantly, and I can tell you I never had holes in my leggings. I also only had one person come to me with holes in their leggings the whole time I was selling (from November 2016 until last month) . Not trying to say that the holes in leggings isn’t a legitimate issue, just that just bc the other person has tons of leggings doesn’t mean she’s a consultant, and doesn’t mean you should completely negate her opinion.

Actually depending on what I was doing that day I would change my leggings 2-3 times during a day. I also wore them for yoga, to the gym, and to bed. And I have pets- even during rough play I never got holes.
Again, not trying to discredit the hole issue, just saying that being a consultant shouldn’t negate the other commenters opinion.

You are one of the lucky ones. I have had two pairs that ripped (not in the seams either ) after one wearing. I wash my LulaRoes separately and hang dry. They are just very flimsy for $25. Done with the brand after spending hundreds!!!

My place is already too full of my own clothes, and for a little while, I dabbled in flipping vintage stuff from thrift shops, and I felt like *that* made my house too crowded with clothes. Imagine…this.

My husband and I helped some acquaintances move into a larger house, a lot of which I suspect was because she needed more room for her “inventory”. It was an enormous burden moving all those racks out of the bedrooms as the racks had to be disassembled. As much as I normally like to help people (it took 20-ish people 4½ hours) this one was a chore. And they were only moving 3 miles away. We’re talking SEVERAL truck and trailer loads.

The couple did nothing to prepare the house for the move, and not just the MLM inventory, but everything, which was annoying. I remember when I moved no person who came to help had to put anything into boxes. Everything was boxed or suitcased appropriately so others came to help primarily for the furniture and all the boxes were staged by the back door so all we had to do was move the truck up and walk 15 feet.

But for this couple, in their new house….they just put it all in the basement. That was the first time I ever learned of LuLaRoe. It’s annoying, and no I did not buy anything.

When will these predatory mlm scams focusing on women end? Amway, Scentsy, Mary Kay, Avon, Tupperware, Pampered chef, Jewelry mlm’s etc. Fifty years of these misleading pyramid schemes promising women a so called opportunity. With the internet, hopefully young women will stop believing in all these pie in the sky promises. This sounds like the clothing mlm “Weekenders” that failed.

For the life of me, I simply CANNOT UNDERSTAND why women (and some men) fall for this MLM “brainwashing”. No one ever makes a lot of money in a pyramid scheme, other than the parent company. I guess women are very gullible, and when you’re not doing very well financially & want “more”, it is easy to be brainwashed. Watching videos of other consultants & how “great” it is & how much money they made is very attractive to a stay-at-home mom whose husband is making enough money for them to live paycheck-to-paycheck. The idea of going on a free cruise excites them because they can’t afford to go on one with their own money. (If I went on a cruise, I wouldn’t want to be with thousands of other LLR consultants talking about how they run their business, how much they sell, how much money they made, etc. I would want to get the hell away from all of that.) So, I think that’s how they fall for drinking the Kool Aid. They get a new credit card because they don’t have enough available credit on the credit cards they already have to purchase the $6,500 initial inventory & pray they can pay it off before they pay another $1,000 in interest. I have never seen anyone with a good job, making a good salary, become a consultant. It seems that cash-strapped people fall into these MLM schemes ALL. THE. TIME.

I think what Many don’t realize,no matter what! you are told…..you have to have some “salesman” in ya or you will fail! Many of these women have signed on to this scheme and are shy or really young….they are failing! I know several that won’t sell unless it in an outfit ,because they don’t want it bought and resold,many many of these pieces simply don’t fit the size guide ,you absolutely must guess!Many patterns cannot be found in duplicate,and worst is….you Never know what’s coming in your crate ! Never! I now know 2 consultants trying …..to sell their inventory and get out …..it’s on every street corner,on every other woman in the grocery.I was in retail for 10 years,there are only so many garment factories left in Vietnam.Many of these leggings are now showing up with a different label,same product ,new name,half the price.

I was making 75k/year in marketing and spending $1.5k/month in daycare. I quit to stay home with my son and sell LuLaRoe. I profit about 1.5-2k/month, which is $500-1k less than I was profiting from my full time job after daycare expenses, but now I stay home with my baby and I only work half of what i was before. If I worked LLR full time, I imagine I’d make at least what I was making before in marketing. I have a downline, I buy at least 175 pieces a month in inventory, but I also sell about 200 items a month working part time on LuLaRoe. It’s easy to sell a lot, you have to replenish your inventory anyway, so why not get a nice bonus check on top of that? This is an interesting post, but the author is under estimating the appeal of these clothes, the market for it, and the amount that we as consultants sell every month. Also, they don’t use remnants for their clothing. LuLaRoe has a full design time producing 400-500 new designs each day that are then printed onto fabric or woven to create their own fabrics. The leggings are the tip of the iceberg. LuLaRoe offers about 40 styles and all manufacturing employees are paid above what is considered “living” wages in their county of residence.

I am glad someone finally said something. I really dislike people writing articles with only half of the information. Just using the starter packages as an example, you pretty much double your cost if you sell everything. So im not sure where they are getting their numbers from. I own 6 “outfits” (6 tops, 6 leggings) from LLR currently and i know i will be buying more. Everything is so comfortable. If you didnt follow the washing instructions on your clothes and something happened to them, thats your fault. I have a ton of non LLR leggings and they get holes in them too. it happens.

Sheila — What is this “half of the information” you are suggesting??? I think you miss the whole point. Sure, if you sold everything you bought, you’d make some money. But you CAN’T sell everything you bought, much less sell it at full retail. You’re going to have unsellable sizes and prints. Then there’s the quality issue, and the very high instances of holes that are being reported, even when people are following instructions. The reality is that it is nearly impossible to turn a profit in MLM, yet women are out there recruiting with claims that there is so much money to be made. It’s deceitful.

I agree Being a Lularoe Consultant is a crap shoot. You can make money but you have to have a ton of followers on Facebook or Periscope and also get a lot of great patterns which rarely happens.Consultants are mostly sitting on a lot of dead inventory nobody wants.

Again, you are one of the lucky ones that don’t have a problem with the quality. I think you are probably a LulaRoe seller and would love to get rid of your product to recoup your money so bashing will hurt aby chance of that. Yes I have other brands that have gotten rips but they weren’t $25. I expect them not to last as long but some are actually better quality than my LulaRoes. I feel sorry for the dealers that were duped into thinking they’d make money.

I do have a coworker who is a business/finance savvy (she’s a senior financial analyst) that got into LLR after moving to a rural area in Virginia. She was working from home and craved the social interactions she used to get in the city, so she got into the program mainly to socialize with the housewives in the neighbor. I believe she mentioned that she bought in a few round of purchases too, and got out of it recently. She made in the 6 figures at her job so I don’t think she was cash strap or anything, and was happy the whole time she was doing the selling for LLR. She never tried to recruit anyone but just focused mainly on selling the clothes.
SO to sum it up, we will be surprised to find out for what reason people got into these MLM scheme..

They want something to “do from home” and they want to “succeed” in the “business” world “just like the boys do”.

So rather than just cooperating with their husbands to contribute to a good home life, these women feel like they need to COMPETE with their husbands, and because there is some unnecessary desire to feel more independent.

There’s no reason to compete against our husbands. Let them slave away earning the bacon. A lot of women have this weird idea in their heads that our husbands go to work to have fun and goof off. They only do it for us though, so lets not waste money on MLM scams that could go to our kids’ futures.

So rather than just cooperating with their husbands to contribute to a good home life, these women feel like they need to COMPETE with their husbands, and because there is some unnecessary desire to feel more independent.

They want something to “do from home” and they want to “succeed” in the “business” world “just like the boys do”.

Not really. They are LIED TO … they are told they can start a home-based business and still have time for the children, the spouse, the housework and the cooking because it will only take a few hours per week.

They are subtly and not so subtly told they could/should be doing more than they are, and the bait of having and doing it all is dangled.

Yes…it’s the lies and empty promises. You’re given gross profits and they’re made to look like net profit. As a mom looking for a way out of a crappy job, they paint a mice picture of “part-time work for full time pay” when it’s so so so much more to it. You don’t really get more time at home with the family because it becomes 24/7 trying to “hustle” the sales. Sure “everything sells” but u need the time and opportunity to find that one special person for whom that style/print/size of garment was made for. Unless you’re getting unicorns by the boatload (and maybe 0-3 pieces of that 33 piece order are unicorns) you’re SOL. Then u can’t even give some of it away! I admit I was a new mom and looking for a way to help earn money and support the family and i was blinded by the glitter and golden promises. Now after a nervous breakdown I’m left with a huge inventory and soul crushing amount of debt that i don’t know what to do. I want to tell others to run run run and don’t fall victim to the lies and empty promise!

I make more than my husband and I don’t compete with him. I’m equal to him and I am able to work just like he is. This is very sexist to assume that just because women want to make money that means they are emasculating their husbands.

I think LLR is a scam and preys on those who are looking for quick money. Hell, half of these people probably put the fee on their credit cards.

In some cases (including totally non-MLM ones) the wife trying to earn some money isn’t trying to *compete* with her husband, she’s trying to not put all her eggs in her husband’s basket. Like, what happens if he gets laid off before he has a ton of savings, or he finds another woman he likes even more and asks for a divorce, or whatever?

Painting these practices as “direct sales” norms is irresponsible. There are many ethical, professional, supportive and successful direct sales companies. There is a callous elitism and sexism in this piece depicting some “suburban,” “midwestern,” “desperation” among women. I am midwestern and an independent distributor in direct sales. We are not an MLM but these types of cliches and misconceptions serve no purpose but to demean our profession and turn people away who may well benefit from additional income and career development. I’m disappointed at these broad brush generalizations – and the ridiculous photos here that cast women as easily duped and incapable of determining best business practices.

Kia – Multi-level marketing is NOT direct sales. Do not use the phrase “direct sales” to draw attention away from the fact that these companies are nothing more than recruiting schemes. Yes, they have products that they use to make them look like legitimate businesses, but they’re nothing more than pyramid schemes.

By all accounts (i.e. LinkedIn), you’re an accomplished professional. Why on earth would you waste your time in an MLM scam, and waste even more time trying to defend these predators?

You’re not in a “profession.” You’re part of a huge scam, and you’re helping an MLM company dupe even more people out of money. Did you know that more than 99% of people LOSE money in MLM? It’s not a business!!!!

First, I wasn’t saying that LLR isn’t an MLM. I found the subject of the article interesting and clearly it’s a cautionary tale. The author of this article is confusing direct sales and MLM, and they are not, as you point out, the same thing.

I can only speak with confidence about our own company. Our representatives do not stock inventory. Orders are drop shipped from the factory. We are not an MLM, we are a direct sales company. There is no requirement whatsoever to downline, though we do offer incentives and support for people who are interested. Managing a group well requires a lot of time and effort and is a worthwhile growth opportunity for all. That said, our priority is personal sales, not arbitrarily recruiting representatives just to say we have them.

For my part, I’m working with an ethical company (both the manufacturer and our own distributorship) whose products have been on the market since 1909 and whose sales professionals have been loyal to the brand for decades on end. There’s full transparency and our operations bear no resemblance to LLR as described in the article.

Oh Kia – Your company is also an MLM. None of the MLMs “require” recruiting. But yours, like all other MLMs, DO HAVE recruiting into multiple levels in the pyramid. That’s a multi-level marketing company.

“Managing a group” is not worthwhile for nearly everyone involved in MLM. I’ve heard repeatedly that personal sales is a priority for lots of MLMs, and that’s almost never the case. Kudos if your company really is focused on that, but retail sales in MLM are hard to do, especially consistently.

I would love to dig into your company… I suspect it’s really no different than all of the MLMs I’ve seen. Most people probably lose money, can’t develop a consistent base of retail sales, make very little from recruiting, and therefore don’t actually have anything that resembles a business.

Yes, but they don’t have unrestricted recruiting with multiple levels of commission. They control the spacing of sellers to make sure they can all make money enough to live on. LuLaRoe has saturated the market with resellers.

The main problem with LLR is that consultant have to buy inventory. So the company is always making money even if the consultant does sell it. I sold Pampered Chef for about 10 years. Never recruited. Net profit of at least $600 per month. It was just ‘for fun’ for me and met my needs. It’s the inventory that is a killer.

“I think this company uses scrap cloth to make items, that is one reason the inventory is vague.”

LuLaRoe is pulling the scrap-cloth over consultants’ eyes.

LLR has an “F” rating by the Better Business Bureau. You could spend hours on the BBB site reading the LLR complaints. Poor quality, poor treatment of consultants, refunds held up, etc. According to the BBB, it notified LLR of its concerns and received no response from the company. Social media sites poke fun at LLR “bloopers”, wherein bizarre prints, combined with sloppy cutting at the factory, result in embarrassing clothing.

Yet, many women wait in line to sign up with LLR, gleefully handing over thousands of dollars of their money, some even giving up other careers.

Dallas being the location of MK headquarters, I would expect that. The Dallas rating has to do with the corporate HQ aspect of MK, which is probably pretty good. I doubt that rating has much to do with the independent sales force.

The BBB isn’t some government watchdog for consumers. They’re a private business. If you look at both MK’s and LLR’s BBB pages, the important thing to notice is that MK is BBB Accredited, while LLR is not. This means simply that MK pays to be a member of BBB, while LLR does not. That’s not a reflection of my feelings towards either company, only towards BBB.

I think the more important aspect of the BBB is evaluating the complaints that they show on their website. Those don’t tell the whole story either, but they certainly are an important piece of the puzzle.

This is true. I’ve owned a brick and mortar business for 20 years. The BBB came knocking on my door at year 3. They said how I was getting great reviews and that they wanted me to be part of their organization. I drank their Koolaid and gave them the $300 they wanted so I could put a plaque in my window saying ‘BBB Accredited’. A month later I noticed that a new competitor (open 3 months) had one of these signs in their window. This competitor suddenly closed and took their customer’s stuff with them.
I found out later that if a business with HORRIBLE complaints just replied to the customer making the complaint, that the BBB would maintain their A+ rating.
In the end, the BBB is just another business.

Thanks for this post. I hope people who are considering joining LLR will read it. A dear friend of mine became a consultant in November. She has regular “online pop-ups” and it’s the same initial inventory sitting there week after week. What’s horrible is that she put the entire initial inventory on a credit card because she was convinced she would be able to pay it off within two weeks. She is recently divorced and a single mom of three. They live in a tiny house…god knows where all of these clothes are stored. Between the LLR market being over saturated and the trend dying down, I’m afraid she will have a rough time even recouping her initial investment .

It’s the same with a friend of mine—-she has so many pieces left from her initial inventory (because the patterns are hideous), and she is bending over backwards to try & sell them. She is trying to come up with “outfits of the day”, to try and downplay the hideousness of the patterns, and “mystery sales”, where she will wrap up the hideous pieces along with another more attractive piece for a certain price. She also did something else that I can’t remember. And all I see are the same pieces/patterns rotating on her FB page. She had really high hopes for LLR—I tried to talk her out of it, but she (and her husband) were convinced she’d pay off her initial investment of $6,500 (plus all of the other expenses involved in the start up) in a couple of months. That hasn’t happened. The only one laughing all the way to the bank is the corporate LLR company, not the consultants.

They allow returns on inventory as follows:
1. every item must be in original plastic wrapping (as of 2017) in order to receive a refund with a 15% “restock fee”.
2. if items are not in the very thin, impossible to keep intact plastic bag then they will take a 25% “restock fee”

And they only refund pieces u purchaded from them. If a consultant traded say a s irma for a m irma llr will not refund tge consultant nor do they send the items they won’t accept back to the consultant. Not to mention consultant pays return shipping and it takes Months to see the money back.

This is no longer true- they take back everything so long as they deem it resellable and give you 100% of your money back. If the clothes have strong odors, covered in animal hair, damaged in anyway then they won’t take it back. But so far I’ve been hearing from other consultants that are GOOBing that they are getting their full refund.

As a LuLaRoe consultant, I appreciate the thoughtfulness of this post. I’ve been a consultant for just over a year with my sister and have been successful at it. While we don’t have a large downline (we only have 4 under us) we are consistently able to make money AND reinvest in inventory each month. We did not join LLR with the intention of getting a large downline so they can support us. We solely did it so that we could host pop ups on our own. We do like the clothes and don’t feel the dresses, skirts and shirts are overpriced. The leggings? It’s a minimal part of our inventory because they’re too much of a fad for us.
Our downline commissions are minimal, and we are ok with it. We aren’t trying to build an empire or change lives or whatever the latest MLM slogan is. We are debt free and making money. Is it $60k a month? Nope. But it’s enough that we split it 50/50 and are happy with the additional income.
I think those who fail at it are the ones who honestly think they can sell all their inventory on Facebook and can pay off a credit card in 3 weeks. That’s not realistic and I see a lot of them closing up shop because of that.
Is it a perfect company? Not at all. They have flaws that drive me crazy but we will roll with it for now.
Anyway, that’s my experience with it.

I would be curious to see an income statement. You start with your revenues at the top. Subtract the ‘cost to selling the goods” What is your total? Then your liability is your unsold stock. Wow only $200 wholesale? So a few ugly smock style shirts and like corn the cob leggings or something? I know, its none of my business but I think you should do it for yourself. Take that net number and divide it by how many hours you spend unpacking that crap, hanging it up, photo it etc.
Still making the bank?

I don’t understand why you’re being rude to me, I’m not lying about our situation and I’m certainly not hustling the business telling everyone if they they can make a ton of money if they do it. We both own small businesses other than LLR so I believe we have good business sense. And if us each bringing home $1500+ after purchasing inventory each month isn’t enough bank for you, then I guess we aren’t doing so well. We don’t do Facebook sales, we do in home parties, so we don’t spend time taking tons of photos. Hanging up items is negligible time. But to each her own. I was just sharing my personal experience with it.

Not being rude- asking questions you should know with your ‘good business sense’. The $1500 after purchasing, is that your net sales you come up with in my formula which is just basic accounting practices? $1500 would not even pay my mortgage hon so no that is not impressive. Take the number of hours worked or devoted to your LLR business- that includes everything, home parties, gas, getting there, getting all your bookings, it all. How much per hour does that come to?

“And if us each bringing home $1500+ after purchasing inventory each month isn’t enough bank for you, then I guess we aren’t doing so well. ”

Is that before or after your expenses? Not just inventory, but travel, hostess gifts, party expenses, and expenses you wouldn’t incur if you weren’t in LulaRoe (child care, convenience foods, the clothes you decide to keep for yourself, etc.) .

And how many hours do you spend on getting the hostess, the guests, and all the stuff that comes before the party? And then the party?

Because what can look good when you only look at income often falls apart when you consider expenses and the time involved.

Are these other businesses also MLMs? If they are, you’re violating contract clauses which prohibit you from selling another MLM to the first MLM’s customers and recruits. But you probably don’t care about that.

If your other businesses are not MLMs, how much time and effort are you taking away from your real businesses to promote your MLMs?

Furthermore, it’s a violation of MLM contracts to sell MLM products in a retail location. There’s a reason for that; it has to do with legal liability for the company when there’s a retail outlet for the merchandise. But you probably don’t care about that either.

So you each net $1500/month on your LLR business—how many hours do you spend on LLR to make that $1500/month? Is the $1500 before or after you deduct for taxes (which are substantially more when it’s self-employment income because an employer isn’t paying half of your Social Security tax)? If it’s before taxes, you’re probably only netting $1200-$1300, tops.

If you’re working 20 hrs/wk, you’re only making $15-$17.30 an hour—not a great haul, but not the worst. If you’re working 30 hrs/wk $10-$11.54. If you’re doing this full-time, you’re making $7.50-$8.65/hr without benefits.

But if you’re only spending 5-15 hours a week on this, then okay, $1500 is decent supplementary income for that amount of time. The blogger mentioned in the OP seems to be making this a full-time effort, all for what amounts to less than minimum wage with no benefits.

That’s the way I thought of it too—how much are you making per hour? Because isn’t that how you would evaluate how good a salary offer is at a “regular” job? If you are spending 50 hours/week taking pictures, posting pictures, doing “pop up parties”, lugging all your crap around to do house parties, answering questions on FB all the time, etc., I cannot imagine that you’d be making very much.

More proof that the “system” or “marketing plan” does not work. The people who are successful in MLMs have to go outside the system to make money. Whether it’s selling the products via eBay or other outlets, or having avenues of income related to the MLM that do not include selling the products; for example, income from motivational speaking to the MLM’s reps or selling them self-help books and wares.

My SIL started selling LLR in the spring and I made a pity purchase. I bought leggings which i liked and an Irma which I hated the fit of. Instead of having to mail back to her and bothering her with a return, I sold them on eBay for a net loss of 1.45. When she asked how I liked the outfit I told her I didn’t like the Irma and I sold it on eBay. She freaked out and said she could not sell me to knowing I resold something on eBay. She accused me of try’s no profiting off of her because I bought some of the really cute prints I’m happily off the hook for any further pity purchases but we’re still not talking.

I know—for being forbidden to sell stuff on eBay, there sure are a whole hell of a lot of people dumping—I mean, selling—their stuff at rock bottom prices. I bought 3 pairs of leggings for $30 because I wanted to see what the hype was all about. To be honest, I wasn’t very impressed. Two of the pairs were practically see thru when I put them on (I am 5’6″ and 115 lbs.) and fit very poorly. My friend who became a LLR consultant in the middle of December gave me 2 pairs of leggings as a gift—one of the leggings was this year’s Valentine’s day heart print. The VD pair of leggings were the most horrible fitting pair of leggings I have ever worn—I could hardly get them over my calves and once I pulled them up, they were like opaque tights!!! I wouldn’t wear those things to garden in my yard if there was a risk of anyone seeing me!! I don’t think the items are of good quality and I think the material is fabric remnants that LLR gets for cheap.

Just an FYI, your comment above was posted three months ago. You said there are 83,497 listings for LuLaRoe on ebay. As of April 16, there are 120,283. Let’s all keep in mind that selling on ebay is strictly prohibited by LLR rules. Either consultants who are going out of business, or desperate consultants who don’t care about the rules anymore are selling on ebay. LLR products listed on ebay is the yardstick of how poorly consultants are faring. I would be that by June there will be around 200,000 items listed.

I’m a consultant getting out of this “business”. This article could not have been more accurate. I personally feel like it’s a scam and preys on stay at home moms, single mothers, or any woman looking to better her life with additional income. The claim it is part time work for full time pay. Let me tell you in 10 months I worked 65+ hours a week. I busted my butt and purchased inventory as often as I could because that is how to be successful. I ended up making $214 in profits total in 10 months. Yes after investing $12k on inventory and supplies initially and thousands more on additional inventory, supplies, account fees to programs, postage, giveaways, personal clothing, etc I made $214. I’m walking away along with 30 of my consultant friends and it is so freeing. This company feels like a nicely disguised modern day cult. If you complain you are hushed. The blanket responses for really big problems are laughable. This company is taking advantage of unsuspecting women and luring them in with promises of making ridiculous money. It got so bad that the company had to tel those top earner to stop telling people how successful they are with actual numbers because the new recruits weren’t making any where near those numbers and felt like they were lied to a deceived. When it doesn’t happen for these girls they are blamed and told they aren’t “working their business” in my opinion the company could care less about anything other than making their money. I feel that this company is going to collapse very soon. I’m glad I’m getting out now before that happens. At least I’ll be able to sell my uglies to other consultants who still believe in LLR’s bs promises of financial freedom.

(The prior statements are my personal opinion and feelings in regard to this business)

LLR is now facing a class action lawsuit for charging illegal sales tax on purchases. They have an “F” rating with the BBB—the BBB reached out to LLR to remedy the complaints from customers/consultants, and LLR never responded to them.

I’m doing a lot of research on this bc I was thinking about joining. I was so excited until I was told I needed to purchase 33 items to stay active a month. That really made me think bc I wanted to do this as a part-time job. I work full-time. I know a lot of people & know I would do great at it but this has me really concerned now.

This total though does not include expenses, such as clothing racks, light kit, hangers, shipping, bins, boxes, bags, labels, equipment like a dymo etc.

So yes you can write off those things. I feel if you put more time you could possibly make good money, building a team obviously nets a healthy bonus check each month but that isn’t as important as understanding the value of selling this product.

Worrisome I can’t tell what the shipping costs were? Unsure why that would be worrisome. Based on my current estimate (we used paypal for some and the bank account for the other half of the year), shipping costs are at $3,115.34.

I think the point I was trying to make is that you have to put in way more time to potentially see more profit margin, but I don’t even know if that’s true. Either way, isn’t the point of LLR to give you more freedom? If you’re spending more than 40 hours a week on this, it’s not more freedom.

For some, this is their full time. I’m completely happy with my full-time job. I wouldn’t quit it, but I do help my wife with her LLR endeavor. I still get skeptical when I run the numbers.

Take for instance the fact that LLR hasn’t disclosed the amount of sales for 2016FY, or even the quarters, or even the months?

However, you can open the compensation report and see that in November the bonus pool was $4.1 million dollars which is 2% of the $200 million they made in purchases from all of the consultants. Then that $4.1 mil is split across all of the bonus points to equal the bonus point worth. Back to the point of all that… $200 million in purchased inventory… but how much in sales? That’s what makes me skeptical, has that margin changed over the year? Or is the ratio not good so they don’t disclose it. We know that black friday weekend $33 million was processed through Audrey, but what about the whole month? Does it even reach 50% of the purchased inventory?

Granted they still have the issue that not all consultants run sales through bless because it has issues from time to time.

I don’t follow this site and its unlikely I’ll get back here to answer replies. I only skimmed the article and it’s misleading IMO. I started in Nov 2015 and here are my 2016 numbers (rounded and a little fuzzy with starting near xmas):
–grossed about $155K in sales
–About $85k in profits
–initial investment $6K
–investments in home boutique and business start up supplies abut $15K
–Shipping costs (-customer charges; mostly from free shipping promos) about $1500
–My profits after costs: about $62,500

–I also get an average of $2500 a month in bonuses, but I didn’t do any active recruiting.

These are my first year numbers. This is starting my business, building my inventory, and buying equipment, some of which was wasted as I learned what worked and what didn’t. I currently hold about 5k pieces in my inventory.

I went into this understanding IT IS A BUSINESS! and I may not turn a profit the first year. Who sold you on a get rich quick scheme?

Aside from my profit, I cruise qualified, so me and my husband got to do that for free. I also got to travel a lot for training and convention. Mostly free from points from the CC I use to order and pay off.

Aside from the initial $6k, all other $$ put into the business came from sales profits. You make roughly 53-56%. So for most of the year i just put the money back into the business. I paid off my $6k in 2 months and started building inventory after that.

I do have a team of 13 people, but I did absolutely no recruiting. These are people that sought me or teammates out. That $2500 a month is pure profit that I treat as a true bonus and don’t expect or budget on it.

I had a girl join 2 months ago that got the mid package and she just paid it off form sales and has ordered 4 times since with profits.

Based on recent sales I’m looking to be on track to sell over $240,000 this year, that roughly profits of about $10k a month. I’m done building my business so, aside from some operating costs, all those profits are for me.

Most of the reason I see people fail is due to thinking they are buying into a get rich quick scheme. This is a business. You’ll get what you put into it, and honestly, product you may never sell is a business cost. If you invest this much to start a business you should know that going in. Unfortunately, we do have many people recruiting who aren’t training, so some girls fail just due to a lack of info. I take as many of them in as I can. The owners are addressing this through holding bonus points for leaders who don’t train.

Another reason girls fail is because they stick to one mode of selling, usially just Facebook sales that take a lot of time and sell the least. I do on-line, in home, and I do events. I put about 35-40 hours a week. Not bad for the income I expect this year…at least not to me.

I just got off the cruise and there are plenty of successful people doing this. Most of them just on sales and not actively recruiting. This is set up as an MLM, but you can profit well from just sales if you run the business correctly.

Well, I took screenshots. I’ll put the links below if this site allows it.

Not sure why I care so much what you think… I guess because I have done a ton of MLM companies and this one actually makes me real money without having to recruit.

Is Lularoe an MLM company? Sure. But you can make a good living off sales alone, and that’s why I love and promote it. The fact that you don’t believe I did this and I just got off a cruise with over 2000 other people who sold $12k a month for at least 4 months to qualify is all the proof I personally need.

Believe my screenshots or not, I don’t care.

One screenshot is of my sales report in my Lularoe portal (BLESS). I took out the personal info and transaction stuff in case it could be used for nefarious activities.

The other screenshot is of the spreadsheet I copied the data out of to add up real quick. It seems my sales were better than I though. This doesn’t include the sales I have take via Paypal at event through out the year. So my sales were probably over $200K. In this screenshot I highlighted all the data in the column to add it up. Look at the bottom right of the pic to see the total.

With the 2 side by side you should see that the info matches. And no. I’m not going to scroll through and take a million screenshots to prove I’m not adjusting the data. Believe it or not. not my problem.

Maybe I’ll pass this link on to my team and let them all decide to comment as well. If you run this as a small business, it is profitable. I met lots of couples where the husbands have left 6 figure jobs to help run it. On the cruise I estimated that I was about in the middle for sales.

Nice screenshot. We got a glimpse of dollar values for February 12, 2017, ($186) and February 13, 2017, ($384). We also got fragments of February 3 and February 14. Interesting that there’s a gap from February 4 through 11. No sales those days?

I’m sure you know that a screenshot of a spreadsheet doesn’t scroll like a spreadsheet, so we can’t see any other dates. Intentional?

If we average February 12 and 13 and apply it to the rest of the month that’s a total of $570 and a daily average of $285, which puts you on track for $8,000 in gross monthly sales, or $104,000 in gross annual sales. Before cost of inventory and other expenses.

But wait… to see the whole picture we have to take February 4-11 into account, when no sales were recorded. So that’s really a 10-day total of $570, or an average of $57 per day. Gross revenue. After that the math kind of goes downhill.

Oh yes, please don’t tell me about your shell game of reinvesting your profits to fund your inventory. If you’re putting all your profits back into inventory, those are new purchases and you have to count them. You can’t just pretend it’s all take-home profit and the new inventory was free.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you, my orders totaled $41,052.35. But like I said in my original post, my goal my first year was not to make a profit, but to build. I won’t be ordering such big orders any more. And those costs are already figured into my gross vs profit numbers.

Positive anonymous testimonies are very persuasive. It’s definitely in your benefit to defend your MLM. I’m not saying you are lying, just pointing out that there’s a very good reason why someone would show up anonymously to lie.

LLR is going to collapse in the midst of this class action lawsuit over sales tax charges—-their legal fees are going to be so high that the whole company is going to shut down. Mark my words on this. What they did is not only a civil issue, it is a criminal issue. They knew exactly what they were doing because many of the consultants questioned it & customers complained about it. In fact, the BBB tried to contact them to remedy the situation, and LLR never responded to their inquiry. LLR had some cockamamie explanation for the sales tax issue, and that customers are “immediately refunded” if they were charged incorrect sales tax (which I have heard is not true, actually—-customers and consultants actually wait a considerable amount of time for refunds, usually because it is next to impossible to contact somebody at the home office to get those things rectified.) I have a feeling the folks in the corporate positions are running scared at this point. Their BBB rating is “F”. Complaints about poor quality, defects & bad business practices are piling up by the day. Their days are numbered—maybe that’s why they allowed 33,000 people to join in 2016, because they knew they’d be heading down the drain in the near future. That’s $150million dollars from initial inventory money alone, based on $5,000 for each consultant—-many consultants spend more than that.

Well, I tried to post a link of screenshots of proof of my sales, but I guess you probably don’t allow links to screenshots?

Basically I sold $183,140 in 2017. And that is only sales from BLESS (the Lularoe sales system). Some of my sales are from Paypal from my in-person events outside my home. Probably around $20k, but that is pure speculation as I haven’t looked at those totals in a while. And even after that I have in person cash sales that sometimes I forget to put in. I do a sale like that about 2 times a months and usually do around $1500 for the day.

Yeah, 2017 was a typo, but for time saving sake, yes, I just took the screenshot with 2017 numbers in there.

Yes, obviously the $41K for purchasing was a typo. Not going to put more time into it. Roughly half of all sales is profit, so I don’t really pay attention to how much I have spent over time since I’m doing so well. Soon, I’ll be doing my taxes and will have all the number to the penny.

An average of $657 a day…yeah, that’s right. In December I did Just over $20K and in Jan just over $22K. A $20K month would be $666 a day. ( I guess you’ll use that as proof I’m lying because its an evil number right?)

Like I said, I just came across this site. I assumed you and your followers were rational people and facts would be relevant…apparently not.

You guys are in a conformation loop. Even after the numbers you believe an anonymous stranger, who has no way to gain business from taking the time to post here, is lying. For what reason? What would I gain? The owners are millionaires. Pretty sure they don’t care enough to post here.

I’ll make a 6 figure profit this year, and probably around $30k in bonuses (for no work at all), plus all the points I get from my CC allow my family to vacation for free (3 times last year, all flights and hotels paid for in CC points just from my business expenses).

But you and your followers would just use the gaps in my sales over vacation to prove I’m somehow lying.

Whatever guys. I meet 20 consultants every couple weeks at events doing the same thing (some lower, some higher). I just got off a 7 day cruise with 3k other people making a living off this…but you go ahead and believe in am here posting lies at no gain to myself.

Any potential Lularoe consultant who reads this, don’t believe the negativity. If you go with someone who is successful and will take the time to train you, and you aren’t looking to get rich quick, and you realize this is work, you can make a good living off of the sales from this business. I have seen one person on my team quit due to low sales, but she thought she was going to invest and throw her stuff on FB and just sell with almost no work. This is a self run business. If you want to be successful long term, you have to put in the hard work upfront to get there…like any other business in the world.

Others who have low sales either stick to only one mode of selling (just online or just at events) or are only working part time and only want part time money.

You don’t have to recruit or face the prospect of business drying up if you never recruit. Women buy clothes and they always will. New styles come out every year to stay with trends, this MLM company is uniquely set up to last.

Lastly, if you want to join, realize its a small business, not a get rich quick scheme. Anyone selling you that is a drive-by recruiter and wont help you get started. The company says they are trying to root them out.

When I have someone interested I share my numbers if they ask (soon I’ll have tax papers to prove it and I will share those) and any successful consultant will prove this to you with tax forms as I would. And when I have someone join in another area, I fly out to help them launch. Anyone who is successful should be willing to invest a little time and money into you since you dong well will make them money in the long run.

Alright, that’ll be my last post. I could post my tax forms here and you guys would still say I was lying. This post is a waste of time.

I lied, one last post since I know you guys are foaming at the mouth to say I don’t know my numbers since I don’t know how much I put in to inventory.

I don’t know that because in the beginning I put all profits back into the business. I have a separate account for my business that I keep money in for purchasing inventory and paying expenses. Well, really I use a CC for points then pay it off with that account.

In November when I started taking a profit I cut the account down to $8K and took the rest as profit. I was putting 25% of profits into that account for Nov-Jan, but that’s too much. Since it has over $10k in it, I’ll probably just cut back to 10% and see if it starts getting lower than I like over the next few months. Since I have built my inventory I don’t spend very much on ordering now. Just enough to keep fresh items coming in as that generates more sales. Right now I’m selling more than I order.

So as I know its not real, right now it feels like everything is a profit since I built my bank account and inventory up…but I know that isn’t a real thing.

We’re not foaming at the mouth. We are simply questioning your numbers. And in fairness, you agreed that you posted a WRONG number… the purchases. So which numbers that you posted are true, and which are false?

We would be idiots if we didn’t question your numbers. If you make what you say you are, and it’s primarily from selling products, then good for you. But we’re not just going to take everything as gospel and not use some critical thinking skills.

Unfortunately the things you posted didn’t support what you are saying about your numbers, and we simply pointed that out. We’d LOVE to look at documentation that shows the whole story. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you CAN make a living from just selling the clothes and maybe you only put in 25-30 hours a week. If that’s the case and you believe so strongly in the company, why won’t you prove it to us? I know you don’t owe us anything, but I’d think if you’re telling the truth and you think the company is great, then you’d be happy to prove us wrong.

Hi. I read your posts above and trust what you’re saying. Here’s my question: my wife and I dove into LLR in October. We’ve got so much inventory sitting and sitting….We had a decent December and January, so we may get out of this with our skin, but we’d like to make money at it. Our upline is dreadful. Zero help, cheerleader nonsense, not one single business / marketing suggestion in 5 months. You said that you take people in all the time. How does a consultant find a better mentor/upline/trainer? My wife doesn’t want to go scorched-earth on our friends above her, but she’s working 50 hours+ a week and last week she sold $100.

Concerned husband – It really doesn’t matter who her upline is. She’s going to have trouble selling (and more importantly, profiting) no matter who is above her. The fact is that very little actual retailing goes on in MLM. Why do you suppose that is? There are lots of reasons, but typically it’s because the products are overpriced, the market is saturated with reps all selling the same thing in the same way, and people are simply tired of MLM.

Of course, the company and the reps tell you that lots of people are selling lots of products. It’s just not true. A few people are selling lots of products. But by and large, most people have difficulty establishing a retail MLM business.

Your best bet is to blow out the inventory as fast as possible and just be done with it all.

For the record, no one here is here to put you in your place. But everyone wants you to be honest when posting and more important- with yourself. LuLaRoe is a private company so they have no obligation to show your their financials unless legally required like a public company. That is quite telling, if you cannot see their income statement, other than the sunshine and rainbows they are ramming up your ass, you have no idea what is going on. This is not to insult you but to get the facts into your mind.

IF this is a business as you stated, I would love to see your income statement.

To give an example:

Gross sales
– cost of goods sold
= net sales
IF you divide the net by the gross, you can see your gross margin. The higher the number, the more money you’re making.

Then take net sales which is really before you take your taxes out and subtract what you will be paying for taxes.

How does that number look?

If you cannot do this or when you do your taxes all perfect, I invite you to review your schedule C. That should put everything into perspective. Numbers never lie. But as shown here many times, liars use numbers.

why oh why does anyone care??? Let these ladies (or men- no judgement) do what they like. If they want to sell this stuff, so be it. I purchase lularoe here and there…I think some prints are great, I think some aren’t. The girl hanging with me to my left may think the opposite. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. These people aren’t making you buy anything you don’t want. It may be a fad, it may not be. The person I know who sells it is a SAHM who was looking for a way to keep connected to the outside world of diapers and bottles. Is she making money? I don’t know and I don’t really care. Is she happy? Seems so. I get the feeling that some of us are a little jelly…maybe too large to actually look cute in leggings with pieces of cake on them. I’ll share with you all what my Grandmother would say in a situation such as this “Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy.” Good job Grammy!

Brianna – I’m sorry you missed the point of the article. The point was that 99% of people lose money in MLMs. These things are scams, and you’re almost guaranteed to lose money. So while it’s nice to say “let them do what they want,” I am here to help educate people. You see, the MLM recruiters are pushing this as a way to make money, when they know almost no one will make money. I’m here to shine a light on this and to get truth out there.

Because we don’t like seeing OUR friends and families getting lured into debt by this sort of shady tactics.

If the business was honestly presented, no one would sign up … “pay thousands of dollars for inventory you have no control over and cannot return even if it has manufacturing flaws. Compete with thousands of other sellers online and at flea markets while the fad for gaudy large print leggings lasts. ”

Exactly. I have a close friend whose brother and sister-in-law are waiting to onboard to LLR. I have told her hundreds of times to attempt to talk them out of it, simply because market saturation and onboarding at this stage will be such a loss. Indeed, if you can come into an MLM as a consultant, promoter, whatever early on, you may turn some sort of profit. I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that folks onboarding within the last few months (and hell, probably year or so) going forward will turn any sort of profit.

As someone who has purchased several pairs of leggings, I can say that I will no longer be a LLR customer because the quality of the clothing has gone incredibly downhill. I fell into the addiction and purchased a few pair early on; they felt great. The last 2 pairs I ordered (and will ever order) have holes and fit way differently than ones of the past. Because so many consultants are onboarding, I imagine production has spiked to a point where quality is now compromised to the point that I (and several people I know) are no longer buying the product.

Not to mention, because of LLR’s success there are plenty of competitive companies popping up with the same business model, except that consultants are able to pick their own inventory, the start-up price is upwards of about $3-4k less, and the products are similar to LLR’s “buttery softness,” but less expensive. I firmly believe that while some folks will remain loyal to LLR, but bubble will eventually burst. If you look on Facebook alone at the number of “going out of business” and “liquidation” sales, it’s on the down spiral as we speak. I do wish the best of luck to any consultants out there, but from a customer’s point of view, the quality of the clothing is garbage now, and you’ll probably be losing customers very soon.

The going out of business sales are also on eBay—I bought 3 pairs of LLR leggings for $30. Two of the pairs fit horribly (I am 5’6″ and 115lbs.) & are practically see-thru. I won’t ever purchase them again.

Agree with this article 100 percent. Run away from LLR. I started in Aug and i wasted so much time , And money in this company….when I should’ve focused on my own independent business.

I hate how things are hush hush.. and we can’t say anything negative, or we are shun.
I purchased about 22k and made about 14k since august…which I haven’t seen because the whole time I was reinvesting. I feel bad for anyone who is signing up now… run and don’t look back. Waste of time!

300 – 599 US $1.90
600 – 1199 US $1.65
1200 – 1999 US $1.55
>=2000 US $1.38
(This may be the source of some of the faux LulaRoe leggings, but the AliBaba manufacturers pricing is just a bit below what you would expect to pay for short runs with a wider variety of fabrics. There are other manufacturers on AliBaba. )

Enjoy LLR while it lasts, because the competition is increasing. Every day, new companies similar to LLR are popping up. Everyone is jumping on the “colorful, comfortable clothes” bandwagon, and women will no longer put up with thin, dry-rotted leggings that already have holes when they arrive at their doorstep.

And the “free” cruise wasn’t really free. You had to order enough inventory to qualify, and you paid $ to get your partner and yourself to the port of Miami, hotel if necessary, excursions, and port taxes, plus income tax on the cruise. (You could order even more inventory and qualify for bonus checks to help you cover those extra expenses. But the bonus was only given to you when you were physically on the ship.)

MLM trips/cruises are just photo ops to make the public think reps are “successful” and making big money.

Here is the thing about cruise qualifying. I have 2 friends that have cruise qualified, meaning they made over 12k in sales a month…. but guess what, they have been doing this for about 8 months now and are still largely in debt. Cruise qualifying means nothing, because you can spend 25k that month purchasing inventory and sell 12k and guess what, you cruise qualified, you get that “elite” title, but you put yourself further in debt to get there. And 3K women on that cruise? First off, how many of those women are actually making a profit.. I don’t know, maybe some, DEFINITELY not all. And second.. how about the other 68,000 consultants that are now selling these clothes. Seems like a VERY tiny percentage actually can make a decent wage from this or profit in any way at all. Just my 2 cents. 🙂

Exactly. It sounds good to those who don’t know about the requirements and details. The cruise is just publicity and photo ops.

Did you notice how many people boasted about being “cruise qualified” but didn’t go? Why not? Because they could not AFFORD to go. Not only that, they can’t take time to go on a cruise, because they need to be home working their business or they’ll fall further behind and deeper into debt.

“Aside from my profit, I cruise qualified, so me and my husband got to do that for free. I also got to travel a lot for training and convention. Mostly free from points from the CC I use to order and pay off.”

So LLR paid for you and hubby to go on a cruise because you are so great? Or did you qualify, then you and hubby paid for yourselves to go on a cruise floating around w the others who also qualified and paid for themselves?

I just went to Ross and bought clothes of similar style, same fabric, & Qualiity in “unicorn” floral, solid black, and paisley prints. 3 dresses (similar to the Nicole & Amelia) & 2 kimonos similar to the Lindsay and Monroe kimonos. For the price of an Amelia Dress & a pair of leggings. I fell for the LLR addiction. I tried being a consultant, but the selling style was not for me. First of all, I got in at the same time as everyone else got into the craze. I was able to sell off my inventory, but some of the prints were not sellable, so unless you use to them as a giveaway/ incentive, or a private sale discount, you get stuck with them. I noticed the quality go down hill as they started to up the onboarding levels. Some of the Shirts and Julia’s came extremely thin, see-through, and there were 5 pieces damaged in my initial order. I was able to have a few successful pop ups. The problem with the clothing business is you have to have the infrastructure and manufacturing in factories to keep up with the demand in new consultants as well as the sales for the top consultants. Shipping times at first were quick, but then started to take weeks, and there were lots of back orders. So the consultant above is in the top 3-5% and went on her cruise. Which is probably is true. But like the writer of this article says, The other much larger pool of consultants are not going to be successful because in most mlms they eventually do become saturated. When I first started and did not get many sales, I felt that feeling that the company was making money off the new consultant inventory packages. You definitely do have to hustle and work hard to be successful in this business. I am glad I got out out when I did.

I was thinking the same thing—-since when is going on a week long cruise with 3,000 other LLR consultants talking, walking, eating, breathing & sleeping LLR every day, in addition to having to attend meetings & training sessions, a vacation? When I go on a cruise, I want to let loose & have fun—-hang out by the pool, have some frozen fruity cocktails, go on some excursions (like scuba diving), participate in some of the ship’s activities. I don’t want to even think about work.

If you are in the queue now, it’s probably best to get out and thank your lucky stars you did before your credit card got charged.

In the past month, I’ve been invited to three private sales where consultants are liquidating their stock (25-40% off) because they are getting out of the business. And right next to those “going out of sale” group invites are other LLR consultants who are trying to sell their stuff at retail. They can’t compete. Between these liquidation sales and eBay, you can buy the stuff for less than retail.

I think if you got into this business a year ago or earlier, you picked the right time. Anything after that, and you are trying to establish yourself in a completely saturated market. That’s what happened to my good friend (a single mom of three). She got her initial inventory in November (put more than $7K on her credit card) and sale after sale, pop up after pop up, didn’t sell enough to pay down the debt and order more inventory. Poor thing had a financial plan all worked out. She sent a sad FB message to her friends last night saying she is quitting LLR and is giving us first dibs at her clearance inventory. When it’s all said and done, she will probably be able to pay off the debt, equipment expenses, etc. But the profit she was hoping to see after working long hours since November is just not there.

Working for free isn’t so bad. It’s called volunteering, and you often can get a charitable deduction for volunteering. And it’s not uncommon for the charity to cover some of your costs, such as supplies and special clothes. The training is usually genuinely free too.

The problem with MLMs is that you’re working for lower than nothing most of the time. You’re paying them to work. The only way to get paid much of anything is to get a bunch of other people to also pay the company to work. Plus MLMs demand you buy all sorts of tools, marketing materials, special clothes, “training” classes…

Countless women were caught up by watching YouTube videos where people claimed to be making their money back in just weeks. But once you fork over $6,000, you find out the truth.

Complaints I’ve read: Reps pay for full orders but only receive half because the rest are on back-order for weeks/months; clothing has defects, and you’ll wait weeks/months for “credit”, only to order more with your “credit” and then wait weeks/months for THAT order, which, again, will have missing items and defects, etc. The cycle never ends, it gets worse.

You’ll have to keep ordering every month to meet your ordering quota, but you won’t have choice items to sell and you’ll be further in debt. Don’t be surprised if LLR changes its policies — again — limiting reps on how/where they can sell.
I saw a video where the team leader chastised her down-line for using buy/sell/trade groups. “You should only buy from the company.”

And these reps doing live broadcasts at all hours selling LLR clothing from their garages or living rooms. Oh, my. They look exhausted. Competing with thousands of other LLR reps 24×7 in different time-zones. The rep puts hubby in front of the camera while she tends to the baby or takes a shower. And you can’t just “sell”, you need to have a party atmosphere…music, games, deals, giveaways, jokes. Gotta keep those viewers interested or they’ll jump to another LLR broadcast.

My friend, who joined LLR as a consultant & started selling in mid-December, recently had a “live pop-up party”. Do you know how many people actually watched? 3—one was me, one was her sponsor or trainer or something, and the other one was her husband. I could see the disappointment & frustration in her face. She didn’t sell a single thing. She was convinced that she was going to bank some major coin with LLR—I tried to talk her out of it—and I think now she is seeing the harsh reality of the LLR Kool Aid.

The net is filled with videos where young women/moms talk about how — because of LLR — they quit jobs, cashed in their savings, took out loans, charged thousands of dollars on credit cards, remodeled rooms, and bought shipping supplies and cameras/lighting equipment they’ll never use again. Tragic.

It’s a terrible business. They market it as “full time pay for part time work” I watch these consultants over and over claim they are team no sleep. Because they literally are up until 3 or 4 in the morning invoicing packaging photographing…etc. lularoe claim that it only takes about 5k to have a successful business and that they will provide you with all their “best selling” pieces, no, a ton of consultants who onboarded in the middle of fall, think October when the weather was getting very chilly, had 65 maxi skirts, 60 Cassie skirts, 45 julias, I mean pieces of clothes that they were basically trying to clear out of the warehouse. So these consultants had more then half of their initial inventory made up of pieces that does not sell. By years end the couple friends that I have had about 75% of their initial package left. Yes out of 5k worth of “best sellers” they only sold off about 1300 of it, so they push you, “the more you have the more you sell” so they buy more, yes they sell more, but the also are adding more debt and more un sellable pieces to their inventory. It’s a terrible cycle. Especially if you have no business sense on how to actually turn a profit. Another moto “fake it til you make it” horrible, that is their advice to the struggling consultants that can’t make a sell. Yup. I also heard a rumor, this I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but the owner of lularoe telling the consultants to basically ignore their family life to do lularoe and that cheerios is a sufficient dinner for their children. Yikes. Again this i heard from a game of telephone, not from the owners mouth. Will you lose a ton of money if you get into the business, probably not, because I see tons basically selling their inventory off at near wholesale or wholesale prices and are able to pay most of their debt back, maybe just losing a couple thousands in equipment and restocking fees but is it worth months and months of hard work, stress, and no sleep for the inevitable? Speaking of restocking fees, the consultants that end up sending back the worse of the worse prints because they couldn’t even get wholesale for the item lularoe will take their sweet time actually refunding their monies minus the 25 or 30 percent restocking fee. And then all those ugly prints that get returned get re circulated to consultants that are making “new” orders. So they just pass the uglies back to different consultants to absorb the cost. My consultant friends got “new” leggings with tags dating back to April! Other shirts, came wrinkled, packages that were obviously re packaged and even pet hair! They don’t care that it is obviously an un sellable item, don’t be fooled, the consultants are lularoes customers that is how they make their money. Otherwise they would be more transparent about how much in sales consultants are actually making instead of telling people how much in sales consultants are purchasing. It all is just so very shady.

The thing about cheerios being sufficient dinner for your children, is unfortunately not a rumor. I just heard this from a former consultant – she said Deanne had recently said this on one of their training calls/webinars. Pretty appalling. =/

I found a childhood friend of mine on FB not too long ago. She has 5 young children and works full time in addition to doing Scentsy AND Lularoe. She invited me to her “VIP group” and I accepted just to see what was going on.

She’s held 3 parties so far and the latest one had 140+ people invited to it. Only 10 actually watched. I have no idea how much she sold, but according to her photo albums, she has an awful lot of inventory still sitting there since she on-boarded earlier this year.

Above all this clatter, the USA is in the midst of a clothing glut. Why would anyone take their hard earned money and invest in clothes as a business to compete with stores and on line? Then have to deal with the poor quality, a real set up. Go to any store that sells clothes and they are piled up everywhere, so this scam is not viable. What am I missing with the frenzy over these clothes styles? Clownish IMO. This company has done more to expose the true cost of clothes at manufacture and give out the gross feeling they are on the take. Now I am looking for clothes on ultra markdowns as the manufacturing costs are so low.

The funny thing about my friend who just started LLR a month ago – she used to be so concerned about the environment and sweat shops that she bought most of her clothes from thrift and re-sale shops. That’s why I was so surprised she is OK with LLR. I’m assuming the clothes are made cheaply overseas, and this company is contributing to the clothing glut you mentioned.

“Compete with stores”?!? Stores are literally closing by the thousands and department stores are going bankrupt at the fastest pace in history. All that market share is going somewhere. Women aren’t shopping less!

Good point, Weatherman. If brick and mortar stores (which have the ever-important foot traffic) can’t stay in business, the lady with a bunch of frumpy leggings crammed in her house (with no foot traffic) doesn’t have much of a chance!

Now that the media is awash with news about the LLR lawsuit, defects, and BBB “F” rating, the BBB site is filling up with suspiciously positive reviews. Golly, even husbands are posting nice things about LLR, including laundering tips! And another poster wants readers to know that LLR worked overtime to address the tax issues.

You’re not kidding! So many in the last few days sound like they’re RoeBots… “I love LLR!” “I wear LLR exclusively!” “I’ve made so many friends!” Hmm those things say nothing about the business or the product itself…

This company will be over within 2 years. Wait, I take that back, LLR will be over in 2 years; the shysters who run this racket will just start another MLM under a different name and start all over.

I was reading complaints on glassdoor and my heart was breaking the entire time. I could tell that the women really did not understand how any of this works. The consultants are the customers. They thought they were in business with LLR somehow. Their biggest complaint was that LLR was onboarding too many new people and not giving them attention. Hello! LLR already got their bread and butter out of you. Of course they don’t give a damn about you now. The women were also complaining about the quality. Yeah duh! LLR does not have to have quality control because the people take the hit on that are the CONSULTANTS. So why should they care?

It is only when you realize that you are a customer of LLR that you can see why LLR does things the way they want with zero consideration to your needs.

Funny you mention the new business the owners will start when LLR is dead in the water…I just heard that the owner’s daughter has just started a company along the same lines, but it’s children’s clothes.

Well, unlike the “consultants” the people who run this racket actually know how it works. You suck as much money out of your customers as possible before the whole thing goes t*ts up. Those $12 a pair leggings are being sold to the consultant at RETAIL. I don’t know why the people who fall for this nonsense don’t get it: they are buying LuLaRoe clothes at retail and trying to unload it at a substantial mark-up. VIV leggings on Amazon are $12 or less. LLR is selling those to consultants at that price. The poor women on the Glassdoor reviews are just completely baffled when LLR onboards so many people when they cannot help the people they already onboarded. Seriously ladies, LLR does not give a damn about you. You already had your $5,000 shopping spree with them (because you paid retail) and now they are giving you the bare minimum because you are not as important as the next shopping spree ladies.

I consider companies like LLR to not just be financially abusive, but emotionally abusive as well. If you are struggling, they tell you that you are not working hard enough or that you are not being positive enough. It’s just so mean.

Lularoe consultants are usually women who are missing fullfillment in there life. Most are overweight or have few friends stuck at home with multiple kids and need to feel better about themselves. By selling LLR this helps them with there self esteem and meet women like themselves Most have no clue if there making a profit When you ask what there profit is. They always say I don’t know I keep buying more merchandise

Like to know how Lularoe plans on paying back all the customers in Pennsylvania and other states that do not charge sales tax on clothing. LLR has been charging tax on these tax exempt states since there opening day Class Action lawsuit going on now in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania against LLR

Oh my gosh, I was in line at Wally world today and the gal in front of me had lightening bolt leggings, horrible design. I took a leap and said nice leggings, the clerk eye rolled me… when this gal told me that she loves her leggings and has 46 pair. “My husband and I have a point of contention because I buy so many”. I told her I heard that you have to wash them a certain way, “Oh yes” was her response” you have to wash them inside out and by hand or they will get holes”. She went on about how she loves her puppy dog leggings the best. She was about 40 and lets just mention that other pant options (not this brand) would look so much better…..on anyone. I must totally out of touch that these garish leggings are a hit. 46 x 25 bucks each = $1150.00 – wow just wow.

Additionally, IMO If a person wears stretchy waistbands all the time, you can lose sight of your waistline over time.
Agree that this company is going to be short lived.

When I heard that someone I know in Texas was granted a LuLaRoe dealership, I was floored. Evidently they’re going to let anyone in the door. I wouldn’t buy money from this girl much less clothing! Her house is beyond nasty and flea infested and this is a representation of LuLaRoe? Leggings aren’t worth it.

Thanks, Christina! I am putting together a Lularoe article right now, and was hoping to include some of your article, it was great. I will PM Tracy to see if she would rather you contribute separately, and I will let you know.

Great articles.
Your comment, “How can I possibly endorse a company that preys on the stay at home mother, encourages her to go into a metric ton of debt, and then sells her sub par clothing and leaves her to fend off the angry customers herself?” really sums it up.

When I was invited to a Lularoe house party, I thought, okay, I’ll go. Maybe I could score a new pan, bowls, candle holder, gadget, whatever. I didn’t realize it was clothing..hideous clothing at that. Hideous, overpriced, poor quality, honey, you can’t go outside in THAT shirt with THOSE leggings kind of hideous.
I did a Google search a few days before the event to see what kind of items I could expect. No..No..No..but crap, I’ve already confirmed.
So, I went. Surprisingly found a dress, not the best quality, definitely overpriced, but, in a random act of bad decision making, I asked if it could be ordered in my size, a large. Yes! I was assured it could. But…and it’s a big but, the company would choose what pattern I would receive.
WHAT?!? NO!
Honestly, the patterns are quite ghastly. The fact that many a woman are convinced it’s a great, fashion forward idea to combine the various ridiculous patterns together for a dizzying effect is just ludicrous.
Most of the clothes are ill fitted, have a distinct toddler vibe and frankly, I just can’t be seen in that.

The LLR owners want you to believe that the weird patterns, mismatched stripes and poor construction are part of LLR’s “charm.”

I just listened to a video where the reps were going on about how LLR is still in its infancy…the company is debt-free, which means it’s not closing down anytime soon…the owners have a lot of DS experience and were in Avon for many years.

The LLR owners want you to believe that the weird patterns, mismatched stripes and poor construction are part of LLR’s “charm.”

I just listened to a video where the reps were going on about how LLR is still in its infancy…the company is debt-free, which means it’s not closing down anytime soon…the owners have a lot of DS experience and were in Avon for many years.

I have a friend who is an LLR consultant and she bragged that she can retire at 50 from selling LLR. I did make a few pity purchases. But haven’t bought anything else in months. She is constantly trying to recruit us to also be consultants saying how great it is and how much money she makes. I go to her online pop ups and I still see some stuff that didn’t sell since August of 2016. And she’s tried putting them on clearance by cutting $5-$10 off. Still didn’t work. She doesn’t realIze that the only people getting rich are the big bosses.

If she is constantly trying to recruit her customer base, that will take away from her selling. Does she realize that? If you see the same stuff popping up that hasnt sold that retirement will come at 80, not 50 as she intends.

It doesn’t help that the clothes are hideous ugly. I haven’t worn patterns like that since I was 8 years old. I wouldn’t accept any of that clothing for free, and if someone gave it to me, I would bag it up for Goodwill.

I have a friend who has “owned many businesses” over the past five years and LLR is the most recent. She’s done MK, Thirty-One, Younique, you name it she’s probably got mounds of leftover stock.

When she first started LLR, she added me to her FB group 6 times in less than ten minutes. Yeah, I’d get a notification that I’d been added, clicked “leave group” and be added back again. I decided to just leave it alone and quietly slip out of the group after a pop-up or two, but she’s added me again within minutes every time.

She had her husband make a “Lularoom” for her shows and it was packed from wall to wall with the ugliest patterns I’d ever seen. Every time she does a video, it’s in the same spot, and a year later…the patterns (that will sell themselves!) are still there. If they truly sold themselves, why would I still be able to see the “ahhhmaaaaazing” white dogs on navy blue leggings?

Her husband did a quick “Q&A” a few months ago and I casually asked how he felt about the amount of money she “invested” to get started. Keep in mind, she happily shares that she paid “A little over $5,000” for her initial inventory. He answered quite bluntly that he told her he was absolutely not putting up that much money because of her past endeavors and she had to come up with it herself, he simply wasn’t comfortable doing that when he was putting more than half his paycheck away to buy her a new home. As soon as he responded to me, she popped into frame and said she made the money in one weekend by having a yardsale (oh, please…) and I should totally sign up.

Now, they’re moving into a new home and she somehow found out that at least 10 women in her neighborhood sell LLR, not the opposite side of town or the same county, the SAME street. She’s thrilled to walk next door to switch patterns or try to have a big live group party.

All I can think of is how I can hear her kids screaming for her in the background during the random popups I’ve dropped in on and how she totally ignores them or says “Go away! I’m busy!” And shuts the door on a crying 4 year old.

This sums up my experience doing this with my wife to a T. We closed the shop, and she wants to open it up again, but we’re barely getting by as it is, and she’s too brainwashed by the “togetherness” of her team, and having, essentially, a feel-good hobby that takes the place of employment. I wouldn’t complain if she had a real job on top of LuLaRoe, honestly. But, she’s been sucked in, and wants to do nothing else besides LuLaRoe, and it’s only a matter of time before we sink under our finances because she refuses to consider other career options. This company doesn’t care about its consultants, and it really doesn’t care about our family, so long as they get paid.

While I got out of lula because I got tired of bunk boxes of ugly clothing…..the math here is not really fair and does not really make sense. Why did this seller in your example have almost 3k in expenses? What was that for? More clothing?

If she sold 3800 in inventory she should have only reinvested 50% of that. Then her profits would not be 900 but much higher. Social media is free and so this scenario does not make sense. If she went crazy on expenses was that LulaRoe’s fault?

So while I do agree there are other concerns, I think it is important to be fair and if this math is right that is poor management on her part. If she curbed her expenses she would make a fair profit.

So because you WANT Kristi to profit more than $900 on $3800 sold, the math isn’t fair? LOL. Of COURSE the math is fair. The numbers are what they are. Her expenses were likely higher than normal because of start up, but let’s not pretend there aren’t expenses. (Of course, that’s what MLM diehards do… pretend the numbers are fabulous and pretend people actually profit.)

Yup. Start up costs are around $500-$700 for racks, hangers, shipping materials and a few other small items like lights, photo equipment ect. I don’t know where these people are getting their “examples” of failed people, but that isn’t the case for anyone I know.

This is kinda making me laugh… if you don’t like being a LuLaRoe Retailer, you can send ALL of your unsold inventory back and get your money back. They’ll even pay your shipping. And you really have to try HARD not to sell enough to cover any of your expenses on top of what you spent for your initial inventory. It’s not the devil business people say it is. I have seen nothing but support for ladies who want to move on. If you don’t like it, just those who do shop and sell in peace.

Alison – Almost everyone who participates in MLM loses money, so your claim of being able to easily sell enough to cover your “investment” is complete bullshit. I wish this weren’t the case, but it is. So NO, I won’t let anyone peddle this shit in peace.

I have a sister in law that got interested in this pyramid scheme when she was sold some leggings and some of their dresses. I remember thinking how expensive they were when she told me about them. $60 each for the dresses, and $30 each for the leggings. She gave me blue leggings during my pregnancy to show me how comfortable they were. Neat turquoise color. And they were comfortable, so I was happy with it. A few weeks later I watch the MLM portion of a John Oliver episode and learned a little bit more about MLMs and pyramid schemes, which honestly they’re the same.

Next week? Wouldn’t you know it, my sister in law mentions she started a new business with LLR, and I didn’t think much of it til she started inviting me to her parties on Facebook. I rarely talk to her except during a family get together. I thought about sharing the John Oliver MLM video to give her an idea but I didn’t want to start any shit with my in laws.

It’s gotten to the point, almost 8 months later, where there’s no more LLR parties, she just gives them away as presents now. She is a mother or 5 kids, wants to have more, and bought into this shit. Her husband is the breadwinner but she controls the money. He has little say in it. I can’t imagine how he feels about the debt and waste of money. She’s stopped talking about it and has gone back to selling homemade clothing and costumes on etsy. She still doesn’t make much. Her income is less than that what she pays to get her materials. Oh and now her friends are selling it too, though they’re also selling that lipstick crap.

TLDR my sister in law with 5 kids, is now in a shit ton of debt that she can’t pay back, and a shit ton of inventory that she can’t get rid of. And she is completely oblivious to the damage she’s done.

I keep trying to persuade people that lularoe is expensive ($30 for leggings you can get for $8 elsewhere), that MLM always ends in tears and that it’d be better to buy clothes from a charity shop and sell them on eBay. I get poo poohed all the time then see the disasters unfolding. It’s so sad.

Wow. The cost involved to even try LLR is ridiculous. I work as a sales rep for a manufacturer in giftware/accessories/jewelry, etc, so I sell directly to independent retail stores. You know, the folks who are actually selling product to consumers at retail prices and don’t pay sales tax until the end sale has actually taken place. I go to many small independently owned boutiques in my territory (not a high end area, mostly smaller to mid sized towns in Appalachia) and there are a lot who are very successful. Maybe not netting six figures a year, but they’re definitely making a decent living by having a business that is truly their own and where they call the shots.

Seriously, anybody who is actually considering paying LLR $5,000 plus just to get inventory (and without any guarantee of protected area or territory nor choice on what products they’ll actually get!!) could instead do the following (not in major metro areas where it would be cost prohibitive, but in your typical town):

Set up a corporation (you can do this cheaply…basically, get an EIN and a state tax ID) so that you can purchase inventory OF YOUR CHOICE at legitimate wholesale costs. This will now give you literally thousands of manufacturers from whom you can buy wholesale product just by having the business set up. You can rent a little space in your town and have an actual shop, and depending on the area and rents could do so fairly inexpensively (that $7,000 you had to give LLR will cover your deposits, some rent, and with room to spare for product) or you could do an online business without the brick and mortar but still with the product that you choose and at retail prices you choose.

In wholesale apparel today, there are tons of companies with nice product at excellent prices that sell them at reasonable “boutique” quantities; for example, you could choose a specific shirt in a specific color and the order minimums might be 2 small, 3 medium, 3 large, 1 XL per order (and it might be a really cute shirt with a wholesale of $15…and this item will be much nicer compared to a LLR shirt that wholesales for $15 because that $15 isn’t covering the three or four upline commissions), so that’s 9 total pieces of your choice at $15 each plus shipping. You can literally fill a small boutique with many different pieces, from all types of companies. This is such an advantage because you won’t have $6000 in inventory of only a few select styles all from one manufacturer. Trust me, I’m in a lot of these small boutiques (and even though I go there to sell them my products, I do a lot of shopping there too, and the amount of cute pieces at great retail prices I find in these small shops astounds me).

Also another huge difference in actually having your own shop is that you know how many competitors you have in your area. Say there’s another boutique in town. Do you know how many LLR reps there are in your town? There could be a dozen, because they’ll take anyone. But if the number of brick and mortar boutiques in any area is significantly smaller than the number of LLR reps for the same area, that is clear validation that LLR has over saturated your market and thus is a bad idea for you to do. Say there is one boutique in your town that is reasonably successful. Now say there are eight LLR reps. We can guesstimate that each of these reps has purchased at least a few grand of inventory. If there truly was a market for that much LLR product in that town, there would likely be a few more boutiques already around. This shouldn’t necessarily stop you from selling apparel in that town; it just suggests that you’d do much, much better with product other than LLR. So, seek out different manufacturers to sell (and there are so, so many…you can truly have a unique boutique with new items that your neighbors haven’t seen elsewhere) and make the boutique your own, with your own touch and style and asthetic. If it isn’t already, your market will someday be saturated with LLR, and if so, the competition will lead to LLR reps having to heavily discount their items to win each sale. While you can enjoy profit margins much higher on your special products.

Now, there is a big difference between “having your own business” as a seller of an MLM product and actually having your own business like I’m describing. You are responsible for everything; rent, utilities, marketing, so on and so on. Truly having your own business takes a lot of responsibility and focus. But if you have several grand to give to LLR, then you absolutely owe it to yourself to thoroughly consider using that money to start your own true business like I’ve described before you pull the trigger on LLR.

I love your post. I know what you’re saying is true because I sell my my art at wholesale to local stores and I see how things are done behind the scenes at these shops. I ,too, am shocked at how expensive it is to start up with LLR. I started my now reasonably successful business with a $600 camera, $100 in software, and $75 in product which I invested in as an experiment to test the market. (Already owned camera and software). My business is part time hours for part time income, honest, extremely flexible, and fulfilling, with potential for growth and little risk because my market is stable, investment in inventory is minimal, and there’s no MLM company to worry about being dishonest or going under. Oh and I’m also a part time wage slave for a good wage. Pretty nice to know that if I work X hours I’ll make Y income without the steep self employment tax. Yes it’s kind of a drag sometimes but that’s real life. I’ve done the MLM thing as well, for 3 years, and while I actually made profit by selling the goods (not from a downline) It certainly wasn’t easy. Home based parties were fine with me but were tons of work and driving to and fro. That mlm had $300 start up kit and no pressure to buy inventory and I think $300/year quota to stay active. And 40% profit. Those numbers are why i started that MLMz husbawas supportive, and why I actually made money! Another reason I find LLRs costs etc so shocking.

Did I read that correctly? The average consultant makes $85 a year in commissions? So basically, I can make as much money substitute teaching in my school district one day a week as the average consultant makes in an entire year? And if I sub I’m a high school computer lab with upperclassmen, I basically do nothing for 7 hours and earn $80. And there are no upfront costs to substitute teaching, aside fromy gas money I use to travel to the school. Screw MLM marketing; become a substitute teacher.

Passing over the business model for a moment-there is no way I would sell this stuff because the quality of the fabric is cheap, and the construction looks like something from a Home Ec class. I recently got ahold of two Amelia dresses (secondhand-wouldn’t pay full price) and I was shocked at the poor quality. No linings, a scratchy zipper exposed to rub up against your back and drive you crazy, and said zipper cheap quality. How can anyone, in all good conscience, sell this stuff at full price? These dresses aren’t worth more than $10-$15 dollars, IMO.

I had not heard of Lularoe until a few weeks ago. Surprising, because I’m definitely in the target age group. Maybe I saw an ad on facebook years ago that I promptly hid…

So my mom was in town and we stopped at a yard sale, where we picked up EIGHT pairs of these leggings for the price of ONE. The woman had over fifty pairs out for display, and told us she had at least forty back inside that she was keeping. She must have had a consultant for a sister or something, but I did some math and was amazed that she had spent over $1000 on all those hideous patterns. We bought mostly solid colors. One had a small hole in it so we got a ninth pair for free. We went back to my house and looked it up – what an awful scam!

The leggings themselves are my least favorite, and I own a lot of cheap pairs from Ross that I can actuallt put in the dryer. We found out they are different sizes based on what country they were manufactured in. The ones I got are just too small for me. I’m not huge, but they are so tight they’re uncomfortable. And can you say cameltoe…

Lol. This is some nonsense. Lularoe is not intended to be multi level marketing. Yes, you get an incentive to get others to sell it, but that’s not where your income comes from. My wife started selling in late March. We had an initial investment of about $5000. She works on it about 15-25 hours a week. Most of this time is her working from her phone, on Facebook, while she home schools our 5 kids. In the 8 full months she’s sold it, she has grossed nearly $44,000 in sales, with a profit of just over $19,000. If you do the math, she’s making almost $600 a week, and somewhere between $24 and $39 an hour. She has no one selling under her. She likes the patterns. She keeps about 500 peices in stock, and orders frequently. Those that won’t sell? They get given away in games. Our profit margin has increased drastically since the first three or so months, where we did give away a lot of goods to advertise.
But hey, you ladies keep on tearing down the moms and daughters that sell it if it makes you feel good. 👍

Chris, Chris, Chris. I doubt that was her gross income. That may be the retail value of the products she sold, but probably not the amount she actually collected. And the “profit” you cite is likely the gross profit if everything is sold at full suggested retail. That also doesn’t take into account all the expenses associated with running this “business.”

Even if everything you said is true…. your wife is now part of the dumpster fire that is LuLaRoe, and the company will likely be out of business all together within a few months. And your wife will have nothing.

Tracy, Tracy, Tracy. Regardless of your “Doubts”, that was exactly her gross sales income, AKA the total sum of money brought into the business. The profit I stated was her sales profit, after business expenses, taxes, etc. Funny enough, expenses are actually pretty small. Facebook is free, most of the shipping is paid by the customer, she prints shipping labels from our home computer. We buy business cards, and occasionally marketing, but word of mouth does well. See, when she told me she wanted to sell it, I hated the idea. I thought all the bad things you guys say about Lularoe. She has no reason to work, I support our family just fine, and I didn’t want her to take time away from our family. But I also support her in everything she wants to do. Turns out, most of the negative, like this story, was completely false. I was wrong about it. And most of you guys are too. She still has plenty of time with the kids, and I. Still homeschools 4 of our 5 kids (the 5th is only 6 months old). In fact, we just ended a 3 week vacation traveling through the smokey mountains, where she didn’t work at all.

Want to hear the kicker? She has a large inventory that we own outright. She’s made $19k while sitting home, pretty much playing on Facebook, and she loves it. Lol. She could set it on fire tonight, and we’ve lost nothing! Or, we can keep selling it, and keep making more vacation money! I bet that really gets your big giant granny panties in a wad. 🤣

Ah yes, the old “it was no effort at all” scam. Sure, she just sat and “played” on the internet and the products magically sold themselves. It took no time, because she really was spending the time homeschooling your kids. It’s a business, except it’s not, because she didn’t have to do anything.

Do you see all your contradictions? Of course you don’t.

And again, she will have no “business” in a few months. Phew. She won’t have to let money just fall into her lap anymore!

Tracy, I think you need to get laid. Lol! I never said she did nothing. I said she works on it 15-25 hours a week. She photographs most every peice that comes in. She hangs it up. She post pics of it. A couple times a week she puts outfits together. Daily, she ships out sold items. There is absolutely work to do. Most of that work is making and scheduling Facebook post. Putting graphics together. It’s not MLM. She doesn’t care to have people under her, it’s not really worth it. If Lularoe folds tomorrow, we’ll sell another brand of clothing. But, Lularoe has made it easy to start the business.

But hey, you guys think what you want. Keep on taking about things you know absolutely nothing about. Keep on talking about women that are more successful than yourselves, who have made it when you couldn’t. It’s cool. The bitterness shows who you really are, and why you failed. 😉

“She’s made $19k while sitting home, pretty much playing on Facebook, and she loves it.”

Yes Chris, you said she just sits home and plays on Facebook.

Yes, LLR is MLM.

More successful than me? I’m not here to talk about how much money I make in my REAL business, but trust that I make way more than you could ever hope to make, and that I do it in a real business that isn’t an MLM scheme peddling leggings.

Chrissy, you need to take the cock out of your mouth. That large inventory you own outright, is TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars out of your pocket – that’s what owning means. Please do burn it all… less over-priced, hideous, cheap clothes in the marketplace. You might as well burn cash.

PS: LLR is MLM. The mere fact that there are uplines and downlines, makes LLR an MLM. Deny it all you want, you can’t change reality. Even if your wife doesn’t recruit more victims, she’s still an MLM’er. She’s still putting money in Mark’s and Deanne’s pockets.

PPS: MLM’ing is NOT a business. You’re an independent contractor with severe restrictions on how to sell and recruit.

Tracy,
If I were you I would stop wasting my time on Chris. (I signed up for alerts so I’ve been getting lots emails in the past week when new comments are added. I know someone who drank the Kool-Aid as well so I was curious about what’s happening with the law suits etc) He was obviously a complete idiot. You can explain business to him until you’re blue in the face, with bloody fingertips from typing but he will not understand.

And the lawsuits keep coming, but this time it’s a supplier who is asking to have the assets frozen.

“According to a new lawsuit, it’s drowning in debt and its founders are using a network of shell properties to shield assets — including millions of dollars’ worth of cars, properties, and private planes — from its creditors.”